Borrow a Book a Month With Kindle Owners’ Lending Library

Kindle owners can now borrow a book a month, if they use Amazon Prime

Kindle owners can now check out up to one book a month from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, free. The service is available to Amazon Prime members, and works on any Kindle device. It is not available on any Kindle apps running on non-Amazon hardware.

This seems to be a lot better deal than the lame and hard-to-use lending service, which lets people borrow your books. What’s not to like? You can check out any of a long list of 5,000 books, and if you are already using Prime, then you essentially get a book a month for free.

To borrow a book, you need to select the “Kindle Owners’ Lending Library” in the “See all categories” drop-down in the Kindle Store. You can also watch for the “Prime” badge when browsing normally, which designates books in the library. You can keep the book for as long as you like, but will be prompted to “return” it when you check out another one.

Obviously Amazon is doing this to push Prime subscriptions. In addition to giving you free shipping on any physical good you buy, Prime is the engine behind the Kindle Fire, and Amazon wants to sell as many Prime memberships as possible to recoup the subsidies on the hardware.

One last thing. Your Prime and Kindle need to be registered to the same account, or this won’t work. This might prove troublesome for people who bought a Kindle from the U.S but use a domestic account in their own country.

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